In Orange County, California, Lucky Stores received numerous complaints that one of their supermarket managers, Richard D. Holihan, was hostile and abusive to other employees. The store offered Holihan two choices: an indefinite suspension without pay, or help through the company's Employee Assistance Program. During his subsequent medical leave, a psychiatrist diagnosed his condition as "Organic Mental Syndrome." At the same time, Holihan received three extensions of leave and was taking 80 hours a week to prepare for a career in real estate and in the sign-making business. When he asked for his fourth extension, the company let him go, saying its policy allowed employees only up to six months of leave, which he had exceeded. Charging disability discrimination, Holihan filed suit, even though in a pretrial deposition he admitted he had never been disabled. After Holihan lost his first round, an appeals court ruled that because store officials had urged him to seek counseling, it was possible they "regarded" him as having a disability, under which he would be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lucky Stores finally settled out of court.

After a three-day training course, Apland & Associates, a Chicago telemarketing firm, dismissed Robert Johnson because he mumbled into his telephone due to the absence of eighteen of his teeth. Johnson sued, and after an initial defeat an appeals court likewise ruled in his favor. "Unlike Johnson," wrote Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, "the Americans with Disabilities Act has teeth." That company also settled.

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